


Rebirth

by NightmareWolf



Series: EW Future AU [2]
Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Headcanon, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 12:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16681261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightmareWolf/pseuds/NightmareWolf
Summary: They were hopeless without a leader.





	Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was based off a dream i had lol. ALSO WANNA STATE SOME THINGS:  
> 1\. i have never written paul and pat so their personalities in this are largley my headcanons  
> 2\. the is future au. VERY HEADCANON BASED (can read part 1 of the series to get a better idea but not necessary)  
> 3\. also like part 1 I based this one off a song along with my dream!! Song is Rebirth by Maretu GO LISTEN OR DIE

Only now, in this situation, was it obvious that they were hopeless without a leader to guide them. They lived off of being told what to do. Paul never imagined there would come a day where that wouldn't be the case anymore. And, yet, it was all his fault that it happened at all.

He thought about it as he walked through the thick, dark forest with his flashlight. Scenes from earlier that day wouldn't stop playing in his head. They clouded his mind and judgement.

Was this a valiant thing to do? Was it just plain stupid? Paul didn't know. He felt a twinge of regret, but tried to bury it. He couldn't go back now, even if he wanted to.

His flashlight fell upon an old looking house; shed, maybe. This is probably where Pat was. They truly were hopeless without a leader, his friend didn't even tell him where he was. Paul needed to get inside quick before anyone saw him, or before the rain soaked his clothes any further. He trudged his boots through the wet grass of the woods, only stopping once he came faced with the rickety old wooden door. He twisted the rusted knob, pushing the door open rather easily and cringing at the nails-on-chalkboard creak it produced. God, he really hoped nobody was around to hear that. They'd be found out instantly.

Paul closed the door behind him, waving his flashlight around the room. His assumption of this being a shed was off, to say the least. It resembled an abandoned house more than a shed. Yes, it was very empty, but clearly had several rooms separated by convoluted walls and hallways. And, oddly, there was still some furniture. Namely chairs, tables, and even decorations like plastic fruit in bowls.

As he took a step and lifted his flashlight again, Paul jumped at the noise of something...scattering. Much too weighty and slow to be an animal of any sort. It was more like...

Footsteps.

"P-Pat? It's me, Paul..." Paul hesitantly answered. A sickly feeling of dread overcame him, making him shut off his light. He didn't want to be seen if it wasn't Pat.

Luckily, a clearly timid voice answered back, "Paul?"

"Pat! Where are you?" Paul clicked on his light again. "This place is big."

"T-The room ahead."

Paul rolled his eyes. Pat was so vague with everything. He walked forward through the rotting, cobweb infested home before walking through a short hallways and popping out into a small room. It seemed to have many empty boxes in it, ones that seemed to have been left dormant for God knows how long. Aiming his light, he saw Pat crouched down behind a large stack of the boxes.

"Scared?" Paul chuckled in a teasing tone.

"Y-Yes! You know what will happen if they find us," Pat answered back in a hushed yell, acting like Paul was stupid. His breath came out short and shaky. It almost sounded like pants as if he were running; only these were out of fear rather than exhaustion.

"Hey, hey, don't panic, 'kay?" Paul turned off his flashlight, leaving the room pitch black besides the small cracks through a boarded up window giving them moonlight. "I got all the shit we need anyway."

"Paul, do you really think we...should be doing this?" Pat raised his head to look up at Paul, whom he could barely see, as he sat down next to him, setting down a rather large backpack overfilled with presumably supplies.

"I don't know myself," Paul shrugged. "I don't know."

Pat looked back at him with a worried stare, pulling his legs to his chest. "I guess..." Pat's voice was quiet. He took a shaky inhale. "If this is what you're choosing to do, I guess I have no choice but to come along." Pat stopped, giving a weak chuckle. "Who else is going to stop you from doing stupid shit?"

Paul chuckled back. It was nice to know, even for how much him and Pat were different, and even if they had trouble getting along...it was nice they could have such a strong loyalty with each other.

After their weak chuckles together fell into an eerie silence, Paul grabbed Pat's hand. With his other hand, he unzipped the backpack and began rummaging through it. "I hate to be the one to address the elephant in the room, but..."

Pat cringed when he saw Paul pull out an xacto-laser. Even in the dark room, it's faint red glow was all Pat needed to identify it. "Y-Yeah, I know. Just—get it done with."

"Okay. Hold still. I can't stress that enough." Paul lifted up Pat's hand and gently turned it to have the palm facing up with his wrist exposed. Red Leader was a bastard, always one step ahead of the curve. There was a reason not many people fled the Red Army—it's because Red Leader would find and kill them. Even if you could deal with the extreme conditions of living on your own, you were never truly safe. All because of the microchip Red Leader forced all of his army to have implanted into their skin. Red Leader thought it through. You can't remove the chip—it's connected to a vein. You would die if you tried. It's how he keeps a large group of people from leaving; they know they'd just be hunted and there would be nothing they can do because of this tracker placed on their body.

At least, that was the consensus.

Paul found several months back there was a way to deactivate it without taking it out of your skin. Simply, you had to break it. It's not easy, and the only way Paul was able to do it was on complete accident due to an injury he sustained. Red Leader never found out, and never had a reason to look up Paul's locations because he trusted Paul. So, he got away without telling Red Leader at all. Truly, he never thought of escaping all the way back then, he was just far too lazy to undergo surgery again to get a new chip. Guess that laziness has its perks.

However, this case was different. He had to manually break Pat's chip without killing him in the process. The thought made his heartbeat quicken. God, let him do this right.

"It'll probably hurt so just don't move," Paul reaffirmed.

Right, he had to basically perform malpractice. He took in a deep inhale before switching the blade's laser on. A hot, bright beam of light in the shape of a pointed tip spurted out. It was red around the rims, but mostly a pure white. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the nauseating anxiety that was building up inside him.

Pat sharply inhaled when the blade came into contact with his skin. Paul tried to focus on the task at hand, and ignored the sounds of Pat's agonized panting. He knew the slow rate he was working at only made things more painful, but it was the only way to insure his friend would be safe. He cautiously melted several areas of the chip. Luckily, whether a bad design choice on Red Leader's end or just to make identifying dead chips easier, a broken chip doesn't light up anymore. They have a tiny red square; if that square fails to light any longer the chip is dead, plain and simple. Paul focused on burning off parts of the chip until he saw that little red square die out. It took several minutes to do. Unfortunately, in exchange to deactivating this chip from hell, a lot of skin around it was burned in the process and, needless to say, there was some blood running down Pat's arm now. Paul grabbed a first aid out of the backpack and gently wrapped Pat's wrist up in bandages. Hey, could be worse. At least Pat was alive, even if that was...hard and tedious to do.

The other was left breathing heavily; tears streamed down from his wide, anxious eyes. At least the whole thing was over. Pat used his uninjured hand to wipe his eyes.

"See? It wasn't that bad," Paul huffed with a smirk, turning the blade off.

"It was that bad, you fucking prick," Pat growled back in a shaky voice. Paul just chuckled.

* * *

Living like this would be harder than initially thought of.

Paul was confident that with their preparations living as rogues from here on out would be easy. But Paul is a short-term achiever; never looking at the bigger picture. He didn't anticipate what sort of threat other than the Red Army lurked in this new life. Namely, non-human based threats. Yes, they brought food, water, first-aid...but how long would that last them? Not enough till the end of time.

Paul really didn't want to end up being a human raccoon; he doubted Pat wanted that, either. So, the only other option was _action_. _Change._

Apparently, fate felt the same way.

It had been about a week since their settlement. The days were rather boring and uneventful, with them usually sleeping entire days within the abandoned house. Once or twice patrolling around, if not just out of sheer desire to do _something_.

Late that night they lied in the dusty old "box room" as Paul elegantly dubs it. As they waited to drift off into another dreamless sleep, something jolted the both of them upward.

A loud creek.

Unmistakably, that was the door opening. Yeah, it was an old piece of shit, but it wasn't so weak that the wind could blow it open. No, something—rather, _someone_ —had opened it. Pat's breath hitched, immediately going silent as he lied back down on the floor as low as he could. Even in the tar black darkness, Paul could see how cautious the other was.

Paul, on the other hand, grabbed his nearby AK and stood (rather, sat) where he was. All he could hear were the subtle, slow thumping of footsteps against the creaky wood floor that seemed to get closer and closer with each take. The only thing louder was the sound of his own breath. He kept his finger on the trigger, ready to shoot blindly in the pitch blackness. Meanwhile, he stared intensely at what he assumed to be the open doorway, looking for any sort of signs of movement. It was all in vain, he knew. He wouldn't be able to see something in this darkness at all. That was until a faint, fuzzy glow emitted from several feet away. It was green.

Paul bit his lip. He didn't know who this was. Maybe if he just stayed as still as he could, they wouldn't notice them.

But then it got closer.

Paul silently reeled back. He couldn't tell who was coming near him. The faint green glow was the only thing he could see, nothing else.

 _Flashligh_ _t_.

That's right! His flashlight! Paul quickly grabbed it out of his pocket, flicking it on immediately.

The light was blinding compared to the darkness he was accustomed to moments ago, causing Paul to squint. But, he could see who was in front of him. His eyes widened a bit as he felt dread settle in. It was the leader of the Resistance.

"We're—We're not with Red Army," Paul quickly stammered, well aware they were still in their Red Army uniforms. If this leader thought they were still a part of Red Army, well, they wouldn't live to see the morning sun.

The taller man looked at the two. He was obviously quite aware of their fearful stares. "Please, give me some credit. I'm not _that_ stupid," he growled. Without response, he started charging up his gun.

"N-No! We can prove it!" Pat hastily spoke. Perhaps out of desperation to not get shot, he held out his wrist, tearing the old bandage off of it. Dried blood splotched several areas of his wrist, but the dead chip was still very visible. "We—We broke it so Red Leader couldn't track us." Paul's breathe was loud and shaky. His eyes were pleading. "We ran away, I _swear_."

"Red Leader tracks you...?" The Resistance leader narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. It looked like he was off in thought. Paul and Pat exchanged confused glances before the man put his gun down. "Alright, I believe you."

Paul had never felt more relieved than to hear those words. He let out a long sigh, feeling a thousand pounds lighter.

"So you two left, huh?"

A silent nod from both of them.

The leader seemed to think to himself again. He folded his arms and tapped his foot against the floor. "If you two aren't doing anything much, how about you help our cause? Think ex-Red Army members in the resistance could be useful."

Pat let out a small gasp, looking over at Paul as if for his opinion. That spark in his eyes told Paul that Pat was very keen on the idea of joining. After all, Paul couldn't blame him. They were always hopeless without a leader to guide them.

Paul stood up, looking up at the Resistance leader with a nod. "We accept, sir."

With a small smile, the Resistance leader scoffed with amusement. "Glad to hear it. Also, don't bother with the honorary. Just call me Edd."


End file.
